lunches to energize and satisfy your youngsters

Pizza

Yesterday was a fundraiser at a pizza place for M’s school. I originally wasn’t going to give in and order since I had meals planned out to make all week. But I slept terribly the night before and was really dragging. Pretty much the last thing I wanted to do was get in the kitchen and make something. Pizza to the rescue all while doing a good deed for the school. Yay!

M has spring break next week and, therefore, I won’t be packing him a lunch all week. WooHoo! I’ll be back on the 30th! Have a great weekend!

Pizza is always a fallback for us when we don’t have time to cook or I don’t feel like cooking or when I’m too sick to cook. The latter was the reason for it this weekend. We still have a few pieces hanging out in the fridge, so M gets them today. I actually found good blueberries at the store this weekend…first time in a long time! Several cucumber slices and a few Wild Oats Organic Cinnamon Teddy Bears round out the lunchbox.

Day 4 of clean out the pantry. I haven’t gone to the store in over a week and a half. We are running VERY thin on fresh items. M actually asked me last night when I was going to go to the store. I asked, “for what?” He said, “you know, the stuff we neeeeed.” He was almost pleading with me.

Well, I think we’ve actually been doing just fine. Our dinners have been nearly gourmet and his lunches have been plentiful.

I said “nearly” gourmet, right? Last night, was far from gourmet. I found 2 bags of leftover pizza in the freezer from when we had the entire varsity football team over. We had an overabundance of pizza that day and I smartly froze the leftovers. I rediscovered the pizza yesterday afternoon as I was scouring the fridge, freezer and pantry for inspiration on dinner. Easiest dinner ever! And enough for leftovers for M’s lunch. Done and done!

Today’s lunch is full of leftovers from two different days. Over the weekend, we had the entire high school varsity football team over for pizza (my hubby is the head coach). The boys ate a TON of pizza, but we still had quite a bit leftover. I froze most of it for later use, but we still had a few pieces left in the fridge. In addition to the pizza, I’m adding leftover peas and roasted potatoes from last night’s dinner. The kids all beg for seconds and thirds of peas every time I make them and M always requests leftovers in his lunch. I totally understand since I love peas, too. I don’t put butter or salt or anything on my peas. They are just organic frozen peas heated in the microwave, voila!

I was at my 20th high school reunion this weekend. I am so tired I’m not sure how I am even standing right now. I could barely muster the strength to put anything at all in the lunchbox, let alone something healthy. So, here we have leftover pizza (from dinner last night because again…the tired thing), veggie straws, pepper strips and clementines. Somewhat balanced even if not entirely healthy.

I had intended to make these cute apple, ham, cheese rollup thingys I saw online the other day, but realized after searching the “deli” drawer numerous times that hubby had apparently eaten all the ham. So, on to plan B. I have a feeling M might like this even better. We had some pepperoni leftover from the homemade pizzas last week, so I layered that with Triscuits and small slices of mozzarella cheese for a homemade lunchable. (Geez, WordPress would REALLY like me to tell you that I made a homemade punchable. I had to change it back to Lunchable three times before “they” believed me!). I added a pickle (in the parchment paper so it doesn’t leak) cause I think pickles go well with ham. Again, this was my original plan. Pickles probably don’t go that well with pizza-like things, but I just don’t have time to plan B EVERYthing. 🙂 I stuck with the apple too and added some grapes and, voila, lunch!

My morning got cut short yesterday when the school nurse called to say M wasn’t feeling well. He had been in her office twice and was ready to come home this time. Poor guy was having some tummy troubles (and is all better now!). I picked him up from school before lunchtime and we agreed that pizza was probably not the right choice for him to eat when he got home. He ended up having some toast first and then ate the plums and some grapes out of his lunchbox. Sooooo, guess what M is having today. That’s right! The leftover pizza from yesterday, the rest of the grapes and cucumbers and I added some blueberries and red pepper strips to take the place of what he did manage to eat.